Siege of Orgrimmar Heroic ProgressionMethod and Blood Legion are leading progress with 13/14 bosses down now, followed by six other guilds at 12/14. Over in the 10 player column, Paragon is still leading with 13/14 bosses down.

Upcoming Pet Changes

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We have a few hotfixes to share with you and these changes should be in game now, or will take effect once the realms have been restarted:

Pierre and Rascal-Bot are no longer Bind on Pickup; they can now be caged and you can collect up to 3 of each.

Rascal-Bot's Phaser spell is now a one-round ability. The tooltip still erroneously states that it is a two-round ability which we plan to correct at a later date.

Jadefire Spirit's Fade ability now has an eight-round cooldown.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Raid Finder DifficultyYou would think with all this LFR SoO complaints that Blizzard would get the message but they're still in denial...
You may have missed my second post. Or are you dismissing a lack of immediate change and specific hotfix notes as indifference?

This guy gets it. You don't make people better players by smoothing to road for them. You do it by handing them a shovel and saying "here's the tools, fix it yourself".
That's an unfortunately common outlook, that if you just made stuff harder for people they'd aspire to greatness. But we know that's not how it works for everyone, or how all people respond to challenges, or necessarily what everyone is even looking for in their entertainment. We're getting into social commentary territory which I'd like to avoid, but let's dismiss the notion that any of us "know what's best" for any other person, and instead accept their preferences as absolutely valid, and think and discuss about what the issues and solutions are from that viewpoint instead of focusing on how to tell other people they're enjoying their game incorrectly. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Patch 5.4 and Deterrence
I understand why there would be some confusion about Deterrence's function in 5.4. And yes, it's a nerf in cases where you were using it more or less on cooldown every minute for longer than about 4 minutes.

However, in cases where you'd like to use it more than once inside a 1-minute period, the new Deterrence is a significant buff. Previously, that couldn't be done without using Readiness, and the vast majority of players weren't saving Readiness for Deterrence.

PvEWhy don't you make all raid modes share the same lockout? That way they won't have to hate such an awesome feature.
We like the idea that e.g. a HC guild could run a flex on another night for those folks who care about achievements. (Source)FWIW, in 5.0 when my old guild was dead, LFR was the only way I was able to run those raids. So I am all for it
I am a HC raider, but if I log on an alt at 10 AM on a Sun, I don't want to have to look for guildies. LFR works great for that. (Source)

Do you think that this bias towards / insistence on larger raids leads to overemphasizing AE heals as a necessary consequence?
In 10s it's easier to coordinate and 25s easier to specialize, which leads to just doing one thing over and over. (Source)
I believe 25s are more fun personally and think better for the game strategically, but concede healing more fun in 10s. (Source)I feel 10s are better socially. 25 is too many people I don't know well enough to care about or listen to.
Some truth to that, but 10s also have to be more selective & are less resilient to losing folks. In that way, 25s good for social. (Source)seems the changes your making 10 man's are becoming worthless and second place to 25 man raids. how long b4 10 mans are gone
10s are in no danger of going anywhere. 25s remain in danger despite the advantages you are worried about. (Source)

so the next xpac will be another cataclysm, you had this talk before that launch about difficulty and need to change
No, the problem with Cat was there was no alternatives to HC dungeons. As I said, exclusive is fine as long as alternative exist. (Source) That has me worried. The early cata zones is what made me leave last time!
Zones (meaning the outdoor leveling content) or dungeons? The discussion was about dungeons.... (Source)

does the vast diversity of player skill pose problems in content design?
Absolutely. Often players can use gear (which is generally a function of time invested) to help make up the difference. (Source)

Why not open heroics first week so heroic guilds dont load up on Ngear with multiple raids and the tiers last a little longer?
Seeing the encounters for one week in normal helps us catch last minute problems. (Source)
Imagine first kill of a heroic boss was 60 sec without cheating. Do we then buff the boss? Do we strip them of their kill? (Source)

If organized gameplay is "the heart and soul" of wow, why is only a minority part of this "heart and soul"?
Queuing for random matchmaking is very convenient. Our concern is that those players burn out quickly without social connections. (Source)

why the hell can i get a cloak off ordos when you need a legendary cloak to even fight him. Waste of a drop.
You can access Ordos if any character on your account has a cloak I believe. (Source)

WoWDB Addon Data Collection
Collecting data on things like the 5.4 drop rates is done with the help of thousands of players. The more people that contribute data, the more accurate and quickly we can update the database.

To help out, just click here if you have Curse Client already installed.

When you are playing the addon will gather data and save it. When you are done playing, Curse Client will see the game close and upload the collected data from the addon. You can see the last time data was uploaded by looking in the Plugins tab of the options, as well as making sure the addon is enabled there. If you don't normally leave it open, be sure you open Curse Client once in a while so that the data will upload

Fan Art
Today we take a look at some more of the Fan Art created for the WoW Tribute book.

LFR is in big trouble right now. Flex has pulled a ton of players away. Not only are the queue times much longer but it's unturned and a worse toxic environment than before. That's bad for wow's future subscription numbers...

I personally believe that raids should be more gear dependent. I think that normal raids should not be possible to clear on first week of patch release and that if a heroic raid boss can be downed without a majority of members with most of their BiS normal gear, then something is not right and the content is too easy. skill alone should not be enough to clear normal nor to down any heroic boss. I also believe that all gear drops on a dungeon and raid boss should have the same chance to drop. seeing the same thing drop almost everytime and the one piece you or someone on the team needs never drops except when that person is not present is stupid.

Interesting to see that they decided to increase LFR drop rates so drastically. Welcome for sure.

I really think they want LFR to quickly lead to realm PUG Flex modes. They don´t want people doing LFR for 3 months and still get upgrades.. they probably want them to do it for 1 month, and then feel comfortable joining realm pugs and move up to Flex. In the past, there really wasn´t much opportunity for upward mobility like that for the typical LFR player.

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Before SoO launched, I was so excited because the very first boss dropped my weapon ( Bear druid). 3 weeks later, running Flex and LFR every week and using a bonus roll on that first boss every time, and even running FLex 3 times the first week just for the roll.... I now have an ilvl of 540, and still using a 510 weapon... lol.. I love RNG.

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Originally Posted by zrankfappa

I limit myself to two runs per week ... it is painful enough doing that. I cannot even fathom having the time to do that many runs, much less the patience that would be required.

I really think overall that is the biggest problem with LFR. Many people feel the need to gear up their alts in LFR, but then hate the idea of doing it 5 times... so they check-out once they get inside and have very short fuses when it comes to wipes. In my opinion, that is why Tuesdays are always much better. you have people who are doing it for the first time of the week, and still mentally involved. By Saturday, the people who only do LFR with 1 character are done, and all you have are people who are on their 3rd of 5th run of the week on alts that don´t play much.

Hmm I think it's very safe to keep that 20% drop rate for ToT instead of 16% you mentioned. The page of Treasures of the Thunder King also indicates that it's less than 80% chance to have a loser bag from any boss.

I call BS on a 25% drop rate for SoO LFR. I've run thru both wings on two toons now, including doing the opening wing on two toons last week and I've received a total of 2 items; one of which cost me a bonus roll. That's twice I've killed each boss from wing 1 on both toons and one go thru of the 2nd wing on each. 25% drop rate my ass. RNG hates me when it comes to upgrading my gear. I swear. Furthermore all I've received so far has been bracers. Two pair of bracers which are exactly the same - save swap mastery for crit. Cute. Really cute. Oddly enough tho the other 2 people I play with have each received many nice new upgrades. My sister got drops for 3:4 bosses, my friend got drops from 2:4.

I call BS on a 25% drop rate for SoO LFR. I've run thru both wings on two toons now, including doing the opening wing on two toons last week and I've received a total of 2 items; one of which cost me a bonus roll. That's twice I've killed each boss from wing 1 on both toons and one go thru of the 2nd wing on each. 25% drop rate my ass. RNG hates me when it comes to upgrading my gear. I swear. Furthermore all I've received so far has been bracers. Two pair of bracers which are exactly the same - save swap mastery for crit. Cute. Really cute. Oddly enough tho the other 2 people I play with have each received many nice new upgrades. My sister got drops for 3:4 bosses, my friend got drops from 2:4.